


In Your Place There Were A Thousand Other Faces

by hihoplastic



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-16
Updated: 2012-02-12
Packaged: 2017-10-29 16:15:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hihoplastic/pseuds/hihoplastic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But Time is dying, the shreds of it tangling in her mind - one life, two, three, four, variation upon variation of things that never happened, did happen, will happen, <i>can't</i> happen, and beneath it all the hum that pleases and destroys her:</p><p><i>The Doctor is dead. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> \- Title from Florence + The Machine's _No light, No light_  
>  \- AU for _The Wedding of River Song_ , based on the premise that the Doctor had no way out, and truly did die at Lake Silencio.

She takes a breath and the world collapses and everything is bright and still.

Then she fires.

\--

It takes five guards to hold her down long enough for the doctor to administer the sedative. It calms her, but barely; a strip of cloth on a gaping wound, and she sits in the corner and rocks. Her lips move but there isn't a sound, and they lock the heavy door and stand on the other side with equal parts wariness and apathy.

She rocks, back and forth, her hands over her temples as if to decompress the noise. But Time is dying, the shreds of it tangling in her mind - one life, two, three, four, variation upon variation of things that never happened, did happen, will happen, _can't_ happen, and beneath it all the hum that pleases and destroys her:

 _The Doctor is dead._

\--

Nothing happened in Berlin.

She never went to Berlin.

There is no such place as Berlin.

(There has always been a Berlin.)

 

The Doctor has never heard of the Teselecta.

\--

The stars vanish and the sun goes out and the universe collapses because a painting isn't delivered. She can see it in her mind, feel it beneath her fingertips. There's a place she's supposed to go, lines she's supposed to say, but it's muddled and fragile like an insect trapped within a foggy crystal - perfectly preserved and unreachable. Bitter around the edges.

There's a painting of blue and gold, and a mother's lullaby, and for some reason she's sorry, she's so, _so sorry_ , but she doesn't understand what for.

\--

She lies still for the scans, the holographic displays of her brain hovering above her, bright little lines and dark little spaces. The doctor thinks she's going mad, that the great warrior has finally broken; that she deserves the madness, for what she's done, and they put her back in the cage with a thin bandage around her temple from where she tore so hard her hair broke off at the skin.

\--

The Angels praise the light of the universe and fall into nothing, but before they do they conquer whole worlds and burn out suns and there's a man who carries the weight around his shoulders like it's the dead themselves, hunched over his back, lifeless but clinging to his form.

She knows this man, remembers him, feels his horror so acutely sometimes that she screams, but she doesn't _know_ him.

She laughs at his suffering - a harsh, guttural moan that causes her infantry to stand straighter and press their heels into the floor. She laughs, because she succeeded, she won, the Time Lord Victorious has fallen now and was punished then, and this is what she was built for; this tangible horror.

At the same time, her hearts clench and her breathing thins and she holds his pain like she would a child, hoping against hope that it's a comfort to him, wherever he is, however far, however little or much he remembers her.

\--

Melody Pond has long black hair and dark skin and she trains in a warehouse in the middle of nowhere for a task she shouldn't fulfill, because Melody Pond has golden hair and pale white skin and reads book after book in a room full of books in a tower in the ground beneath the surface of the Moon; Melody Pond is an archeologist is a student is a liar is a thief is a murderer is a lover; she is white and black and short and tall and here and there and somewhere, she watches with her fingers wrapped around a gun as her so-called friends step into a big blue box; somewhere else, she laughs and strokes the console and the box whispers in her ear that she loves her.

\--

There is a wedding, but she doesn't attend. There's something old and something new, but nothing borrowed and nothing blue and there's a woman who remembers but not enough, and all the guests arrive on time.

\--

A team of five go on a search for a little girl in a library.

4,027 people never come home.

\--

Sometimes, when she dreams, she sees the open sky. A little back-lit crystal and short walls made out of sand. She feels in those dreams, feels something she can't recall, something that maybe should have been.

She feels _forgiven_ , and the word is as hopeless to her as it is precious.

\--

The stories dissolve:

In the past, a family on Tri'ak lose their home. The Walls of Emsor are crumbled and a viscous man is made king. She has never been to Asgard or The Gamma Forests or Losa or Derillium. She has never heard the Towers sing. Never seen space through the blue open doors. Never held an orphaned child to her breast and promised with all her love and might that she would find him a home.

She never kills Kovarian, but that's the only one that makes sense while it doesn't. Why would she kill her teacher?

(Torturer.)

Mother.

(Captor.)

Savior.

(Destroyer.)

Why would she ever care for a child at all?

Melody Pond has always been Melody Pond and there is no such person in all of the universe as River Song.

River Song: the unborn child of the TARDIS, the Doctor's love, his protector, his home, his wife.

Melody Pond: his murderer.

She doesn't know which one she'd rather be.

\--

Everything is grey in her prison. Grey and white and flickering blue. There are no bars in this cell - it is a box of walls, high and thick, with a little window barely big enough for her hand to press against. The guards peer in through the little window and serve her food through the little slot and let her out only when she is shackled and blindfolded.

But still, she can _hear_ everything.

\--

The Doctor dies alone on a white beach. His friends aren't there; he is too tired to invite them. The one he really needs doesn't exist at all, and the others wouldn't come regardless.

Amy Pond lost her child by the Doctor's hand. He never found or saved her. Amy Pond hates the Doctor, just under the surface of her skin, and takes her husband and leaves the TARDIS and settles back down in Leadworth with scars that never heal.

Melody Pond isn't Melody Pond to anyone but herself; she's just another soldier, the greatest soldier, and she means the Doctor's death.

"At least we meet."

"We've met before."

But Melody doesn't care.

\--

There's a song that she doesn't understand:

 _Tick-tock goes the clock  
He cradled and he rocked her  
Tick-tock goes the clock  
Til river kills the Doctor. _

She's never been cradled or rocked, or hugged or held, and she killed the Doctor by a lake, not a river. She asks Kovarian once, but her teacher ( _torturer_ ) doesn't know.

"It's a fairy tale," she says.

But sometimes, Kovarian stares at her from the corner of her eye, and she looks so very, very afraid.

\--

She is married in a field of bellflowers.

Shimmering purple in the moonlight, they whisper with the wind the sacraments, and she places her hand over his. A tall, thin man in a long, red coat wraps their hands in a strip of silk. The words he speaks aren't Gallifreyan, but they're a rough translation.

"He'll do any ceremony, any time, any where. He's licenced on over four thousand planets by six thousand species, and he speaks almost every language," her husband says, with a spin on his heels and a smile on his face. "This," he whispers, "What we're about to do, is the closest you can get nowadays. The closest you can have to a real, Time Lord wedding. And you, River Song, deserve every moment of it."

In a field, on a planet, under the stars, she marries a man with a blue bow tie and seals her promise with a kiss, but it isn't her life and she isn't a river. As hard as she clings, it floats away, deep in her head, locked up and buried and forgotten, except on those days, those brilliant days, when she remembers.

\--

For twenty six years, Melody Pond lives in her head in a eight by eight room with a little window the size of her palm and carefully untangles the strands: this reality there, that one here, labeling them blue and silver and gold: things that happened, things that never happened, things that can change.

She lays her lives out in parallel strips and assesses each one until she understands, until it all makes sense, until she can write it down on loose leafs of paper they slip under her door and binds them together with the thread from her brown prison suit.

Twenty six years, and she finally understands, accepts what his forgiveness - a bright shadow in a darkened room - truly means:

 _Time can be rewritten._

(tbc)


	2. Chapter 2

The first time she escapes the Stormcage, she does so in a hail of gunfire and the thud of bodies. She doesn't bother to count them, or mourn them, or wonder which ones could have been spared; she's a warrior, an assassin, and there are always casualties.

In some reality, she knows that Kovarian is the first. That finding her would be simple. Two bullets for her and two for the colonel and some for the Silence, just because. Instead, she feels her chest tighten and her mind rebel at the prospect of killing the only family she's ever known.

She'll find her vengeance somewhere else.

\--

On the fields of Trenzalor, Silence falls when the question is asked.

\--

The universe never cracks.

A time machine never explodes.

The Pandorica is never opened.

Except that it does and it does and it _is_ , but how it's discovered she'll never know.

There's nothing in history texts or stories or legends about a man who flew into an impossible burning sun. No sketches. No ruins. No proof. And yet she knows, somehow, that it's a lie: time split wide open and the stars burnt out and everything collapsed and then didn't; everything was brought back by a blue book and a blue box and a man she remembers seeing only once by a lakeside in the hot afternoon.

Pencil to paper, history to page, she'll never know that it's her words, her thoughts and half-shaken memories that finally bring him back.

\--

She tries to pinpoint the exact moment that time went wrong. When one reality began to bleed into another.

It wasn't the lakeside, she knows that now. She dreams of dark blue skies and sandy wind and soft lips against hers; fingers full of silk and a hand at the small of her back, pressing her in tighter.

Because that never happened, even though it did. It didn't. It couldn't have. It must have gone wrong before, in his past and her future.

In another life.

\--

Sometimes, she imagines she loves the man she killed. She imagines his heartbeats next to hers, his whispers in her ear, his promises and his trust. She imagines what it might be like, to love so absolutely, and without condition; what it might be like, to be loved in kind.

(Sometimes, she imagines a watercolour field, a soft voice, and a question; the oldest, most obvious question, asked from trembling lips and answered soft and low.)

Sometimes, she doesn't have to imagine, and the regret is almost more than she can bare.

\--

 _We've met before,_ he'd said, his eyes clouded with sorrow, his hand trembling at his side, as if he'd wanted to reach out but wouldn't dare.

\--

They spend their honeymoon drifting.

He traces Gallifreyan symbols into her skin, words like love and trust and hope. She cups his face between her palms and smoothes away the lines of sadness and remorse with whispers from her mind and whispers from her lips, and they drift through time and space as if they'll have it all forever.

On the bedside table, she keeps in a vase a bright purple bellflower that smells of silk and never dies.

\--

Shots fly around her as she dodges and weaves, stumbling over loose rock and tree limbs. She runs, out of breath and almost terrified, across the open field. The footsteps and shouts grow louder, closer, the plasma bursts singeing her hair and clothes.

She turns her head to gauge their pace and trips, falling hard to the ground, but not soft ground, not a field.

Glass.

She scrambles to her feet just as a door closes and the planet disappears and a soft hum echoes through her mind like a warm embrace.

"How did you get in here?"

She grabs the knife from her gun belt, half-spins on her toes and throws the blade at the voice.

It shrieks, and a lanky man ducks out of the way just in time. "Oi!" he shouts, "What was that for?"

She grabs a second blade, but he points something at her over the railing, and the knife falls from her hand. "Seriously, I've told you, no target practise in the TARDIS," is what he says, but what she hears is an echo:

 _Goodness, is killing you going to take all day?_

She starts, stumbles backwards and presses herself into the door, then turns quickly and reaches for the lock.

"No no no! Bad idea!"

He waves the green device again - _sonic,_ she somehow knows - and the doors bolt shut.

"Hard vacuum of the Time Vortex, really not a good way to go," he says, skidding down the stairs to the controls and pulling a few levers. "There are worse ways, I suppose - there's a gas on Vix that forces you to stay alive until your hear - or hearts - explode." He shudders. "Never, ever going back _there._ "

He keeps talking and she keeps listening, but her eyes scan the room, so familiar and so mysterious at the same time. Stepping cautiously away from the door, she slides her hand up the cool metal railing, the earlier hum reverberating through her bones and skin. It's a song she knows by heart, but swears she's never heard.

"You're the Doctor."

He peers out from behind the time rotor. "Of course I'm the Doctor, I'm always the Doctor - except for that one time I wasn't but that's all a bit fuzzy, really; never recommend a fob watch." He turns back to the keyboard. "So, where shall we go? Fio? There's a great festival in 12091 where we can design our own hats. Or Trion in 3435, the planet is completely covered in golden rain - it's not actually golden, of course, it's a reflection of the minerals at the bottom of the evaporating ocean, but it looks like golden…rain."

His words slow, falling to a whisper, as he turns and looks at her. "River?" he breathes. He takes a step forward; she steps back.

"How…how can you be here?" He shakes his head. "Why did I think you could…"

 _Bright lights and a winter storm and gold droplets clinging to their skin. Soaked and glistening, taking refuge under a faulty bridge, the yellow waters up to their knees, warm and soft; laughter, ringing out in two tones. Hands around her waist, fingertips on her skin, pushing her dress down, down, down. It's a pool of gold on the floor along with trousers and a bow-tie and everything is so, so soft; fingers through her hair._

"You remember," he murmurs. "I remember--"

She shakes her head. "No."

"River--"

"Who's River?"

He presses forward again; she bolts up the stairs toward the knife still lodged in the wall.

"You're--" He closes his eyes tightly. "Time. It's Time, being re-written, it's--"

"It never happened."

When he opens his eyes they're wet and shining. "It did. _We_ did. _River._ "

He says her name like a prayer.

\--

She runs.

She runs from the box and the Stormcage guards and the man with a face she shouldn't remember but can't seem to forget.

She runs across worlds and times and wars. She runs when she's scared and runs when she's angry and runs when she's out of breath and alone. She even runs back to the prison, once, but the walls are still small and grey but when she leaves this time she lets them live, though she isn't sure why.

She runs off cliffs and dives off buildings and sails out of moving ships and every time he catches her; picks her up and dusts her off and lets her run away again, until the next time brings her back into his old ship to his old eyes and sometimes he knows her and sometimes he doesn't and sometimes he's alone and sometimes he isn't but he always trusts her, even if it's just enough to let her go.

She runs and she runs and she doesn't stop until she's under a sky full of stars, so bright she has to squint her eyes to see. The wind is hushed and cool and the leaves above her head rustle gentle, turning out a melody as they brush against each other like cricket wings.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" he asks softly, and she can tell by his voice that he knows; that he remembers everything, even when she doesn't.

"What do you want?"

"I want to help you."

She almost laughs. "You really don't."

"I remember you. A different you." He sighs heavily and turns his face toward the sky. "Time's gone wrong."

"Maybe it's gone right," she snaps.

He smiles at her sadly. "You don't believe that, or you wouldn't be here."

"I'm not her. I'm not River, whoever she is."

"You could be. If you wanted to."

"And why would I want to do that?"

He reels back as if struck. For the first time, he doesn't answer or question her, no retort lingering in the air between them. Instead he turns away, shoulders hunched as he leans over the railing, staring down at the ocean below as it laps against the roots of the tree.

It makes sense, then, in the way that it doesn't make any at all and yet seems so clear: "You want her back."

"I--" He bows his neck. "Yes."

She blinks, startled by the vulnerability in his whisper.

She swallows tightly. "I killed you, you know. Or will do, anyway."

He chuckles quietly. "I assumed so."

"Something changed."

He shrugs. "Time can be rewritten."

She hesitates. "And rewritten again?"

"Over and over." He turns towards her. "Why do you ask?"

She lifts one shoulder carelessly. "I killed you," she says, like a throwaway line, but her muscles tighten and her fingers clench around the bannister.

 _I could save you._

Instead of agreeing, the Doctor holds out his hand.

( _tbc)_


	3. Chapter 3

Her back slams against the doors and his body slams against hers and it's all hot mouths and nails, skidding under her clothes and digging into her skin. There's ash in his hair and blood on his face and she kisses him to make him forget. Her dress rips at the shoulder, tangling in his hands and around her waist as he yanks it down halfway, abandoning the pretense of gentleness or thought. His lips attack her skin under her collarbone, teeth leaving marks like answers to the marks across his back and neck from her nails. 

She bites at the junction between his neck and shoulder and his fingers find their way inside her and she presses her hips so hard against his that he stumbles, tearing her away from the wall only to be pushed back into it; her mouth attacks his chest as she tears at buttons and cloth and he grabs at the back of her thigh, pulling her leg over his hip. 

They turn again, her back against the cold wood and her legs around his waist and it isn't soft like it was last time, that one time, that time that never happened; he doesn't trace her skin with Gallifreyan words and she doesn't whisper secrets into his ear that only they know; but when he comes with a cry his lips move to swallow her sounds, and his fingers tangle lightly in her hair. 

\--

He takes her to the ruins of Salonne and Tress in the sixty-first century and watches as she moves through the sand and dirt like fog. She studies and contemplates and asks him questions, but the spark of empathy he so vaguely remembers isn't present; she circles the tombstones like an auctioneer, disinterested in the history save for it's market value. 

"You brought her here," she says finally, four plots away and a world between them. 

The Doctor nods slowly. "I think so. I remember--"

"I don't care." 

He looks up in surprise. 

"I'm not her. I'll never be her. This," she gestures to their surroundings, "is just a manifestation of your guilt. It means nothing to me." 

The Doctor stares, and Melody turns away before his expression and his shoulders fall. 

\--

Somewhere, in some time, the Doctor gives his River a small, blue book wrapped in red ribbon and promises to be there for her always. 

_Back to front. Every line, I promise. No matter what._

Somewhere, in some time, she almost cries at the words, the relief in her veins and the joy in her throat that this man, this impossible, impossible man, belongs in soul to her. 

\--

The Angels destroy three planets before their end, and the Doctor buries his face between his hands and sobs. There are no tears, just tight muscles and an anguished shout and she watches him from across the room as he slams his fist into the wall, and the ship hums in pain. 

"I'm sorry, old girl," he whispers, stroking the wall. "I'm so sorry." 

She stares and says nothing and doesn't understand why he blames himself for a disaster he couldn't prevent.

\--

She tracks him to a small village in England with a closed post and no airport. The box is in an overgrown garden, and she frowns at the familiarity of it. She wanders around, fingers lingering over the dilapidated swing and water-damaged shed. Memories creep along the edges of her vision, but nothing holds. She's been her before, except that she hasn't, and when she closes her eyes she sees flashes, little hints of home. 

Through the window, she spies a thin woman with red hair watching her, and disappears before the Doctor can return. 

\-- 

Unintentionally, she saves his life. 

He's run out of options and run out of time, and something calls her from her prison cell to a small planet where she saves his life with a flick of a switch and a well-timed shot. 

He's surprised, but at the same time he isn't, and he smiles at her widely and she knows that this must be fixed; that her past self did it and her other self did it and her future self will do the same, coming to his rescue based on a hunch and despite the warning bells in her head and heart, she can't help but smile, too. 

\--

"China!" He announces, spinning on his heel toward the doors. "Not just regular China - the _planet_ China." 

She almost looks impressed. "There's a Planet China?" 

Grinning, he taps her nose. "There's a planet everything." 

"It's always like this with you, isn't it?" she asks. "Today, a thriving planet; tomorrow, ancient ruins."

He grins. "All of time and space." 

Her voice is almost wistful: "Next stop - everywhere." 

\--

He teaches her Gallifreyan. 

She isn't sure if she cares or not, but lets him show her anyway, guiding her hand with his own as she makes circles on the page in even, steady paths. He teaches her the words to burn stars and raise up empires and topple gods and when she asks why he says only that she earned it; that he trusts her. 

She thinks he's a fool, but repeats the words after him regardless.

\--

"Who was she?" 

"Who?" 

Melody swallows tightly. "The woman at the house, in Leadworth."

He looks up from the sparking wires in surprise. "You followed me?" 

She shrugs. "I found you." 

The Doctor nods slowly and returns his gaze to the TARDIS' wires. He continues to tinker with the workings silently, avoiding her gaze. She sits on the bottom stair and waits for him to finish, to wipe his hands on the rag and pull the goggles of his eyes. 

She hesitates, then speaks first. "She's my mother, isn't she." 

It isn't quite a question, but the Doctor flinches. 

"I don't remember her," she continues, "but somehow I know." 

He looks up at her, a mixture of curiosity and heartbreak. "How did it happen, for you? Your childhood?" 

She pauses, bristling at the intimacy in his tone. She takes a deep breath to calm herself before answering. "I don't remember much. There was a space suit. Then there wasn't. I regenerated but Kovarian found me, brought me ho--" She halts abruptly. "Brought me back. I regenerated again, trying to escape, I think." She shrugs. "Then I killed you." 

He nods and looks away. 

"Why do you ask?" 

"I wasn't sure," he answers quietly. "If--" He stops and shakes his head, then looks at her evenly. "It's my fault. You were supposed to grow up with them, with Amy and Rory. You were supposed to know them, to trust them." His jaw clenches tightly. "I was supposed to be there for you, in 1969. I wasn't." 

She frowns, but can't quite bring herself to be angry at his admission. "Why not?" 

He smiles, but it's almost devastating. "Because I forgot."

\--

She dreams of purple flowers. A star-lit sky and warming breeze. Of goose-bumps along her skin and his smile, soft and bright and full of joy. She dreams of running, faster and farther than she's ever run before, and all the while her hand clasped around his or his hand clasped around hers and the two of them, always, together. 

She doesn't remember the wedding and she doesn't remember their vows, but sometimes he smells like Egyptian dust and Time, and her hearts tighten like a fist.

\-- 

"You have to promise me," he says, "Promise me you won't keep it - the anger and the hatred. Promise me you won't follow her or take revenge. It might not seem like it now, but someday you're going to look back and remember what you've been through and it's going to hurt, and it'll never stop hurting. But it _will_ get better. I promise, it will get better. You just have to remember that it isn't worth it, and that you're stronger than they are, and you're _better_. So promise me. Please, River, promise me." 

"Why?" 

"Because you're forgiven. Always, and completely forgiven. Never forget that. _Promise me._ "

A long, bating silence. 

"I promise." 

\--

Spain, 1702. 

Alfalfa Metraxis, 5689. 

London. Rome. Forests and deserts and cities and fields, he takes her everywhere. Dangerous places and lovely places and places that are lovely in their danger. He takes her to the future and the past; to the beginning and the end of everything. 

She doesn't mean to fall in love with him, but she does. Just a little. Just enough. His eyes, the quirk of his lips, the line of his throat; the way her hands fit around his shoulder blades and the way he looks at her like she could be someone special if she only tried. 

"This wasn't supposed to happen," she snaps, pacing away from him, gold rain in her hair and on her skin and it wasn't like this before, some other time, but it's like this now and she can't stay still; the ache in her chest and hollow feeling in her throat make her want to run and run and never look back. 

"This wasn't supposed to happen. This wasn't-- I'm not--" 

He steps in front of her and holds her shoulders gently. "You _are_." 

Her hearts beat erratically and her breathing stalls and it isn't enough, she knows, to _become_ the woman he loved. It's too late for that. 

The water is up to their ankles and it keeps pouring and the world is sparkling but she doesn't feel like laughing. 

"I killed you," she says, the catch in her throat causing the words to be whispered. 

He shakes his head. "It's not your fault." 

She pulls away from him violently. "I _shot_ you! I _shot you_ in the chest and you are _dead._ Don't you get that? You're _dead._ " 

"I know," he murmurs; reaching out as she paces, he catches her wrist and holds lightly. She wants to move, but her feet are rooted to the spot. 

Her hair is flat against her skull and gold water masks the tears in her eyes. The Doctor stares at her quietly for a long moment. Her eyes burn and her lungs ache and he stares at her with such compassion that she feels sick. 

"I don't want to die," he says finally, his thumb stroking the inside of her wrist. "Hardly anyone wants to die. But if this is fixed and I have to go, I want to remember what I'm leaving." This other hand settles hesitantly on her cheek. "I want to remember you." 

She wants to ask why. Why and how and what he gets from this, if anything. What she could possibly have to offer him, in any life. The Last of the Time Lords. The Oncoming Storm. What he would want with a little girl responsible only for death. She wants to know, but what comes out instead is harsh and unintentional and selfish and she can't bare to look at him when she asks, "Even this me?" 

She doesn't expect his arms around her waist suddenly, or the pressure of his chest against hers, his hand in her hair and one on her spine and his breath against her cheek. She doesn't expect it and her body tenses until he squeezes tightly and she breaks, burying her face in his shoulder. 

"Every you," he promises. "Every time."

With the rain still falling and the world still gold, she lifts her head and kisses him.

\--

She curls up against his chest and listens to his hearts, his skin warm against hers, the rise and fall of his chest like a lulling wave as he traces Gallifreyan words along her spine.

 

_(tbc)_


	4. Chapter 4

The Doctor dies on the hot sand by a still lakeside, afraid and mostly alone. She strikes him down, solid and unflinching, then disappears into the breeze with a crackle and spark. 

There isn't an astronaut this time around. 

They never needed one.

\--

"I want you to take her," he says, running a hand gently over the cloister bell. The TARDIS hums in protest, and Melody shakes her head. 

"I don't think that's a good idea." 

"It's a brilliant idea," he counters, "All my ideas are brilliant. Well. Except for that one with the lightening bug and the King's china cabinet." He scratches his cheek hastily. "That didn't go well. But otherwise-!" 

"Doctor--" 

He sends them into the Vortex effortlessly, then grabs her hand and tugs her in front of him, between his chest and the console, holding her wrists lightly as he whispers in her ear the way to move and where to stand and how to guide her. 

"Close your eyes," he says, moving her with him around the console. "Let her tell you." 

"She hates me." 

"Nah," he murmurs, waving her off, "She doesn't. She never could. Just give her time to get to know you. This you." 

"Doctor--"

"Close your eyes," he insists. His breath against her neck makes her shudder, and her eyes shut involuntarily. "You're her daughter," he murmurs, his fingers stroking lightly over her skin. "Let her see you." 

\--

She stops running from him and instead runs with him and the years blow by like papers in the wind. They run together and fall together and in between she learns the pattern of the stars, at any where and when.

"You and me," he always says, "Time and space." 

If it feels unfinished, she never dares ask why.

\--

It presses around her tightly, burning her skin and weighting the air. The TARDIS grieves and she feels every moment of it, the anger and the hatred and the guilt. _I created you,_ she whispers harshly. _I created you and you betrayed me. Will betray me. Are betraying me._

"I'm sorry," she gasps, legs giving out at the bottom of the stairs, clinging to the railing as the room seems to drain of oxygen and light. "I'm so sorry." A mantra she repeats, over and over; tears burn her eyes but never fall and the TARDIS is screaming inside her head, a lover's wail, a mother's cry, a sister's bitter silence. Everywhere and anywhere all at once, the TARDIS grieves and her child clings to the frozen rail, knees against her chest as she tries and tries to cry. 

"I'm sorry," she whispers, her voice cracked and longing. "I'm so, so sorry."

The TARDIS refuses to answer. 

\--

She hates that he doesn't blame her. That he can stand to be in the same room with her and hold her and kiss her and make her believe even for a moment that everything will work out for the best. She hates that she lets him, hates herself for holding fast to his forgiveness instead of shaking him off like she's been trained, like she's been told. She hates that he understands. That she doesn't. 

But most of all, she hates that there's enough of some other self in her for him to love, but not enough to save him; not enough to rewrite their ending. 

\--

She abandons the TARDIS in a back alley in the 1920s and returns to prison to pay her penance. She stares at the grey walls and the grey clothes and the grey sky out her little, grey window and lets the days roll by; days, and days, and days, and days that turn into months and years, and days that never came. 

She's waiting, she knows; absently, she understands the unsettled feeling in her chest and recognises for what it is. But she knows, believes with all her might that there is no hope. 

The Doctor is dead. 

Time was rewritten. 

She counts the cracks in her grey ceiling and doesn't sleep for fear of better dreams that she doesn't deserve.

\--

"What I am supposed to do," she asks quietly, "after you're gone?" 

The Doctor smiles and brushes his palm up and down her arm in firm, soothing strokes. "You can do anything you want," he says, tightening his other arm around her bare waist. "Travel the universe, settle down, become a supermodel, take up archaeology." 

She snorts derisively. "Archaeology?"

He shrugs; the motion brings her shoulder blades closer to his chest, warmth seeping into her bones. "Apparently it's a profession."

"Sounds boring."

He laughs at that, pressing his lips into her hair. "That's what I always say."

\--

She's a murderer. A thief. _The woman who killed the Doctor._ She brings fear and fire and destruction, and everyone who knows the name Melody Pond either cowers or applauds in her presence, so she stops using it. It was a tool, once; now it feels like a heavy stone weighted to her breast. Dragging her down. Dragging her under. 

She stops using a name - her given title too scarred, and his name for her to precious to be spoken by other tongues. She keeps it close, secret, guarding it like she would a child. 

She becomes no one, drifting.

\--

Every so often, she escapes just to breathe real air and feel the sun against her throat and eyelids. Sometimes she finds herself helping someone, a child or a village or a planet. She doesn't always win, and she isn't always fair, but her shoulders feel lighter at the end, and the universe, confused, begins to whisper of her deeds. 

\--

The Doctor dies, and the woman who isn't quite the one he loved the first time places a gentle kiss to his forehead and lets her tears smooth the roughness from his face. 

In a fairytale, the love and salt against his skin would revive him; a simple act followed by a miracle, and a kiss to keep up appearances. In a fairytale, they would disappear together, forever, happily ever after. 

In a fairytale, she never would have loved him at all. 

 

She burns his body without being told, then disappears, the air off the water parting molecule by molecule to let her through, like a crowd making way for the bereaved.

\--

Her eyes sting and her lungs are tight and the Doctor grips her hand tight enough to bruise. "It wa--" she tries, "It wasn't my fault." 

He nods solemnly. "I know." 

She shakes her head and grabs at the collar of her shirt, tugging it away from her throat. "It wasn't our fault." 

He agrees. 

"We couldn't-- we couldn't do any--we were too late, we were-- we weren't--"

The Doctor moves closer on the stair and presses his leg to hers. "I know," he murmurs. His eyes are damp.

She stares at him desperately. "Then why--?" 

He smiles at her sadly, brushing his thumb back and forth over her pulse point, as if to reassure himself she's still there; still breathing. "Regret," he says simply, but the guilt and heartache in his eyes belay his murmured tone. 

She shakes her head, almost frantic. "I don't understand. I don't--" She laughs shortly, hysterical. "Why do I _care_?" 

As if unable to stand the distance a moment longer, he pulls her into his arms, hands on her hips and elbows and in her hair, everywhere he can reach. 

On a breathless whisper: "Why do I care?"

"Because if we didn't," he replies, voice quivering under the strain, "we'd be like them." 

\--

She saves an innocent man from the wrath of a guilty king, half-unintentionally and half because it makes no sense not to. The man is old and wise and the king is brutal and young, and she saves them both with sharp words and a sharp lesson and a screwdriver that fits perfectly in her hand. 

\--

Per his request, she informs a woman with red hair that the Doctor is dead past the age of 1103, and that she should not expect him. She does so flatly, without trace of emotion or remorse, standing on the porch of a familiar house in a tiny village. 

There is ivy everywhere. 

The woman barely reacts, as if she'd known before hand; as if it were foretold. 

Melody turns to leave, and for the first time the woman speaks. "You were our daughter." 

Looking over her shoulder, she nods briefly - "I know." - before surrendering herself to atoms.

\--

"Don't do this," she says, her voice hard and high and sharp to keep from begging. "There has to be another way." 

He shakes his head, sadness and regret hallowing out her hope. "It's a fixed point. This always happens."

She grabs his arm and holds fast and refuses to let go despite the gentlest of reassurances. "It didn't the first time," she insists. "Something changed. Something we haven't thought of. Something--" Her fingers tighten around his wrist. "I won't let you do this." 

The Doctor rests a hand gently on her shoulder. "This is where it starts. In this version of reality, this is where it starts. My death is our beginning. You and me." He smiles wistfully. "Time and space." 

She shakes her head. "It's not worth it. Not your life. I know that now." 

"River--"

"Doctor," she says firmly. "I know that." Her hand finds its way to his elbow, drawing him closer. "Time can be rewritten." 

Crooking a finger under her chin, he forces her to meet his gaze. " _Don't you dare._ " 

Her voice breaks. "I can't--" She takes a deep breath. "I can't do this without you."

"You, Melody Pond - River Song, you, can do absolutely _anything._ You don't need me." He presses his lips to her forehead. "You will be _amazing._ You already are." And then, hushed: " _My River._ "

Her arms wind around him like a vice. "Why do you have to be so brave?" 

He chuckles and tangles his fingers in her hair. "I'm not brave." 

She shakes her head against his chest. "You're the bravest man I know." 

\--

It's almost an accident when she saves the world. 

She's in the right place at the right time, fighting the right enemy with the right weapons, or at least that's what she tells herself. She saves the world with a few stun grenades and a screwdriver and a plan that no one else understands entirely. But she's smart and she's confident so they follow her motions and the world is saved and someone else takes the credit when she disappears into the night. 

It's almost an accident when she saves the world the first time; after the third go around, it's harder to convince herself she isn't doing it on purpose. 

\--

The TARDIS comes to her. 

Unexpected and unasked, it appears as her savior, enfolding her frozen body in warmth and light. It takes her a long moment to understand as the snow beneath her turns to glass and the ice on her hands and lips begins to melt. She trails water to the console, dragging herself up the stairs by her arms. There's a blanket on the chair that she pulls around her frame with trembling hands, but she isn't afraid. The TARDIS is whispering, _home_ and _safe_ and _child._

 _Forgiven,_ is what she thinks she hears, as her eyes slip shut. _Always forgiven._

\--

"It's okay," he whispers, "It's okay. You'll see me again. We never meet in the right order, River. There's plenty of me you haven't seen yet. And oh, how we'll run. We'll run so far, River. You and me." 

"Time and space," she whispers. 

He kisses her fiercely to smother the lie.

\--

Every linear year, she returns to the silence of the lake and places a single, purple flower on the sand. 

\--

"What is your name?" the father asks, "So I may tell my children of your kindness." 

She shakes her head, but the man insists, clinging to her hand. 

"Me--" she starts, but she can't bring herself to speak the words.

Under her skin, she can feel the march of time. Forward and backward, up and down, in and out. Somewhere, she is standing among purple flowers. Somewhere, under golden rain and a crystal that broadcasts everywhere. 

Somewhere, they run. His hand in hers and his breath against her neck and his words, soft like feathers. 

"River," she says finally. "River Song." 

Here, in this place, the TARDIS looms behind her, door slightly ajar, calling her home.


End file.
